Relationship between the US and the USSR during the Cold War

For the sake of brevity, it would be fair to state that the level of happiness and life satisfaction among citizens of both the communist Soviet Union and capitalist United States was always a matter of systematic and mendacious official propaganda on the part of the superpowers’ leadership. Strong ideological confrontation between the antagonist camps affected all spheres of social life in these countries, let alone its political and economic aspects. Even though the superpowers did not ever get bogged down in direct conflicts, they did not shun foreign entanglements in the form of the so-called proxy wars. These small-scale frays were characterized by the escalation of the ideological expansion. What is more important, nuclear umbrellas of the superpowers stretched over the globe, which made any escalation even more dangerous. Without launching into digressions, it would be rational to state that it was propaganda that affected the lives of ordinary American and Soviet people the most.

The Cold War is considered to be the heyday of propaganda. Propaganda reached its apogee several times during the Cuban Missile Crisis and numerous proxy wars waged by the ideological rivals. American propaganda strived to persuade citizens of the benign intentions of the US government and colonialist aspirations of the USSR. Confrontation of these two superpowers in the sphere of sports and culture was a quintessential component of the Cold War. Reciprocal boycott of the Olympics in Moscow and Los-Angeles in 1980 and 1984 respectively demonstrates this point clearly. By and large, the USSR often resorted to pitting its strength against that of the US, and vice versa. The superpowers found vent for their wrath towards each other in the cinematograph as well. Motion-picture studios of both superpowers attempted to persuade population of the righteousness of their respective countries’ commitments, illuminating the unparalleled barbarity of the belligerent and altruism of their respective armies’ leaders. Literati and glitterati also fell down before the Juggernaut of ideological triumph. Products (books, films etc.) spawned by the Cold War propaganda are still popular with the population. Although the Cold War tensions have already been dialed down, people in the former superpowers continue to lap the sporadic propaganda up. In economic perspective, these measures were aimed at conquering new satellites on the international arena (“pawns on the geopolitical chessboard”) and taking advantage of their bountiful resources. Thus, the superpowers risked bleeding their treasuries white just to protect the denizens from the overseas propaganda.